Either Everyone Gets a Fair Shot or No One Plays
Paul Krugman made a point about the media today that has long bugged me. A TV show he was supposed to be on (he doesn’t mention which) was canceled when they couldn’t find someone to argue the other side. As Krugman puts it, “In a way this goes beyond my original point ["if liberals said the Earth was round, while conservatives said it was flat, the news headlines would read 'Shape of the planet: both sides have a point.'"], which was the unwillingness of the news media to referee a controversy by actually reporting the facts. Now it seems that a fact isn’t worth reporting unless someone is prepared to deny it.”
It’s popular to beat on Generation Y for being spoiled by a childhood of trophies for showing up, but I’d argue that the media is as much to blame for the problem as anyone. After all, no one makes more of a point of ensuring that both sides get an equal voice regardless of whether one side is completely insane or not. (For the record, I am not referring to democrat/republican conversation, I get that both sides should get equal voice. I’m talking about issues where there is no other side until the media digs one up and gives it airtime.)
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In most cases though, on the basis of the arguments the two sides make, the viewer will usually find himself to have developed an opinion and sided with it depending on whatever makes sense to them. There are not many facts we get from news these days. Earth: flat or spherical, that is not the kind of stuff we go to news channels these days for mostly. Things are more so in the gray area. For instance, one of the comments, by Mike Suddarth to the original post says “It has long been my feeling that point/counterpoint is a wasted exercise if an issue is not disputable. Invading Iraq was wrong. Period. Global warming must be addressed. Period.” I don’t think so. Invading Iraq, seems like a very easy question to answer now. But issues like this, or even the health care debate are not simple enough for a media source that wants to be balanced to just go with one opinion. Sometimes the people’s ideas we like n think should get their full space in media might be right, other times not. And that is dangerous. This is just how democracy plays out, it plays out stupid some times, but it is better. A bad argument shows itself to be bad when you hear it adjacent the good one.
This is an interesting struggle. The bedrock of the news business has been impartiality, despite the fact that one side or another always claims there’s bias. Where it gets sticky is “balance,” which can sometimes go too far by giving equal weight to both sides of certain arguments. All that said, Paul Krugman is hardly an evenhanded commentator. He’s a partisan with an agenda. He argues a point, nearly 100 percent diametrically opposed to one political party.
I don’t see dumb attempts to balance viewpoints as the main problem. Actally, quite the opposite. With the filter of blogs and talk radio, MSNBC and Fox News, people can retreat into a cocoon where the world is only viewed through a prism that reinforces their own beliefs. The world is complex and, as Sriram says, filled with gray areas. For me, that’s what is most refreshing about Obama: he recognizes this. It’s also what’s made him infuriating for zealots like Krugman.
You know what’s a great current example of your point Noah? The whole Obama birth thing.
Mainstream media seems to be treating that Israeli woman who heads up the “he was born in Kenya” camp as a credible source and they keep giving her theory far more weight than something that out there deserves.
Are they being overly “fair” as a way of stirring up controversy (getting viewers incensed is always good for ratings) — I don’t know.
But back to your original point: there’s too much counseling companies to respond to every complaint in social media and to take them all seriously. Sometimes just ignoring the crackpots makes a lot more sense than engaging them as if they had an equally valid point.
The flip of that is the whole theory that in the free marketplace of ideas, the truth will win out, and is it fair what to include and what to exclude. But you know, sometimes I think it’s okay to say “hey, it’s my ball and I’m taking it and going home now.”